[After Action Report] [Theoryhammer] He's Hammer, But Am I Anvil? | Eleventh Edition | Strike Force | Necrons vs. Tyranids

 

Every once in a while I find myself in this situation. I'm playing a game of Warhams the Forty-Thousandth with someone who's clearly put more thought into this than I have. I've put my Monolith somewhere stupid, locking two-fifths of my army out of doing anything useful until it dies. As we're packing up from an early finish, the learned opponent says "your list really scared me, actually..."

It happened with Stoo from the Sheds in tenth edition, and it happened with Rhys of the Rebels last week. I was running the exact same Obeisance Phalanx + Hand of the Dynasty force as last time, complete with phantom Doomsday Ark that doesn't exist; Rhys had Subterranean Assault with an absolute glut of big gnarly things. Swarmlord, Trygon, Maleceptor, Tyrannofex, Haruspex, Carnifex, Zoanthropes, a free-roaming lone operative that might have been Deathleaper, and a Tyranid Prime shoving some Hormagaunts around. Oh, and Raveners, and some more Raveners.

I'd heard things about this detachment being an Experience, negative connotation, and Rhys took his time walking me through how the tunnel markers worked and how to prevent them from doing a thing. None of this helped, since the real secret sauce was "have enough units in your backfield to stop the Trygon deep striking and popping up a tunnel, then bringing out two of its mates and surrounding the tunnel marker so it couldn't be closed off. 

How all those fit down a 40mm wide hole is beyond me.

My tragic misplacement of the Monolith (on the flank where it couldn't move or see anything for the first two turns and got annihilated by the Tyrannofex before the third) and inability to pass Battleshock checks or adapt my plans to a failed Battleshock check (when a unit can't score, don't try and push for bigger scores) basically sealed the deal. Everything I tried to kill with the guns I had available survived with one wound. Rhys didn't need to scam me out of all my Command Points with the Swarmlord, but now that that's happened I understand what the "Vect Aura" does - it punishes people for vague "might as well" stratagem usage.

In terms of the specific battle, Rhys was absolutely right: my army could have taken his, but I'd need to have deployed and placed much more precisely than I did. Subterranean Assault punishes vibes-based play by exploiting every hole it can burrow into and I've learned I need to have my brain in gear and keep my Stalkers back to deter deep strike nonsense. It would also help if I'd had both Doomsday Arks on the board - locking down space and having two angles with which to threaten the larger of the marauding space cockroaches.

Squatting on Rhys' entirely unthreatened home objective, casually blowing up a Monolith (almost) all by itself.

Battleshocked my Warriors, stole their objective, and I think it's about to brain-zap an Overlord to finish off.

In terms of the grander scheme, this engagement made me take a step back and look at the stats. I really hadn't wanted to go first in this game, and I wondered if going first had some kind of consistent impact on my gameplay. 

I've gone first in every game I've lost. That was also eight out of nine games. Intrigued, I did a bit more digging, and realised that the absolute tonkings I've had - this game, and the two non-starters at the Narrative - were all on the same deployment as well. Hammer and Anvil, short edge to short edge, apparently the bane of my existence.

Data point: acquired. Let's look at some maps.

This little gem - Take and Hold vs. Disruption, Hammer and Anvil deployment, Layout C - is the setup I played with Rhys. There's bog-all space for the Monolith, unless it's in my deployment zone keeping order or squeaking into the central objective, which demands it be set up on the home objective (i.e. without line of sight fully blocked) and probably perform a powerful Advance to be sure it gets to where it's going. The left hand side might work, touching the terrain immediately in front of it to allow sightlines onto my expansion, the centre and my home objective. The other option, of course, is Deep Striking, and hoping my opponent has left room in their nice deep deployment zone to slam it down.

In any case, a push up the right hand side, across multiple terrain areas, onto the defender's expansion objective, was not the play. In fact, looking at that map now, I don't know why I even bothered setting up more than a token defence on that side. Stronger push through the centre and threaten the opponent's line from there is probably the way to go, or castle up around a defensively deployed Monolith and control three points as consistently as possible.

Take and Hold vs. Priority Assets, Hammer and Anvil deployment, Layout B. This was responsible for two absolute stonkings at the Newport Narrative, although I don't think it was quite this populated with small scatter bits (the Lands Raider and Lemans Russ seemed to have pretty free reign). 

In the first encounter, the Void Dragon ended up stranded between objectives, being a bit too stately to cover the ground in front of him, and not having the threat range to kill big tanks before they could kill him. In the second, I tried a deep strike with him, landing him on that top right flank in an effort to pick off the Russ commander - alas, nothing else had range or line of sight to support him and he didn't quite finish the job.

Focus is the key. I find this map really hard to figure out, in terms of sightlines and staging - I think that's why I end up going wide in deployment, hedging my bets and ending up without any force I can concentrate. Those big corners on the home and central objectives are so aggravating for setting up any kind of firebase, and the route from expansion to centre is very open. I genuinely don't know how I'd tackle this as the Take and Hold player.

I wonder if a pivot back to Priority Assets will help? I've put up consistently better scores in losing games with that one. Plucking a random map out of the aether - Priority Assets vs. Purge the Foe, Hammer and Anvil, Layout C.

That lends itself to a much more natural "hold home and expansion, use those to contest centre" setup. Or stick the Monolith in the middle to control that area and see if I can force the fight to happen on either side, which now that I think about it is how I beat Sean, since he didn't want to tangle with the big box at all.

I think it's time to open up the Phaeron's Armoury and see if a different set of scoring conditions - a different primary objective, less focused on the breadth of field and more on filling my boots - works out for the better.

Obeisance Phalanx and The Phaeron's Armoury

Priority Assets

ATTACHED UNITS

Overlord (115 Points)

  • Attached as: Leader (Character)

  • 1x Resurrection orb

  • 1x Staff of light

  • Enhancements: Prelocational Optimiser

Immortals (140 Points)

  • Attached as: Bodyguard (Battleline)

  • 10x Gauss blaster

Overlord (115 Points)

  • Attached as: Leader (Character)

  • 1x Resurrection orb

  • 1x Voidscythe

  • Enhancements: Eternal Conqueror

Immortals (140 Points)

  • Attached as: Bodyguard (Battleline)

  • 10x Tesla carbine

Overlord with Translocation Shroud (105 Points)

  • Attached as: Leader (Character)

  • Enhancements: Warrior Noble

Lychguard (160 Points)

  • Attached as: Bodyguard

  • 10x Lychguard

     ◦ 10x Hyperphase sword and dispersion shield

CHARACTERS

Catacomb Command Barge (120 Points)

  • Warlord

  • 1x Gauss cannon

  • 1x Overlord's blade

  • 1x Resurrection orb

OTHER DATASHEETS

Canoptek Wraiths (95 Points)

  • 3x whip coils

Monolith (420 Points)

  • Four death rays

Obelisk (290 Points)

  • Enhancements: Mortality Shroud (Aura)

Triarch Praetorians (80 Points)

  • 5x Rod of covenant

Triarch Stalker (110 Points)

  • 1x Heat ray

Triarch Stalker (110 Points)

  • 1x Heat ray